Quotes and Historical Interpretations AOS 2 France

Abbé Baudé (1790) – Authority over the clergy

‘My religion does not allow me to take an oath such as the National Assembly requires. … I recognise no superior … than the Pope and the bishops.’

William Doyle – Clerical oath significance

‘The French revolution had many turning-points; but the oath of the clergy was unquestionably one of them, if not the greatest.’

Peter McPhee – Bourgeois beneficiaries

‘Those who moved to fill the power vacuum left by the collapse of the ancien régime … were bourgeois.’

Peter McPhee – Rural clergy role

‘Throughout rural France … the parish clergy were at the heart of the community: as a source of spiritual comfort and inspiration.’

Peter McPhee – Civil Constitution impact

‘The Festival of Federation celebrated the unity of Church, monarchy and Revolution. Two days earlier, the Assembly had voted a reform which was to shatter all three.’

Elysée Loustallot (1790) – Clerical resistance

‘The reign of the priests has passed … they would no longer resist the lawful will of the nation.’

Thomas Paine (1791) – King’s betrayal

‘The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who … directs his course towards a frontier … and evidently meditates a return … with a force capable of imposing his own despotic laws.’

Pope Pius VI (1791) – Rejection of constitutional Church

‘Take special care [not to follow the orders] of this secular sect … avoid in this way all usurpers … called archbishops, bishops or parish priests.’

Philip Mazzei (1790) – Counter-revolutionaries and civil war

‘They yearn for civil war; but more probably they will get a massacre at their own expense … impossible to distinguish the innocent from the wicked.’

Petition to government (1791) – Abdication demanded

‘A monstrous crime was committed; Louis XVI fled … This was not the will of the people.’

Francois Furet – King’s flight exposes monarchy

‘Louis XVI started to die on 21 June 1791 … his flight tore away the veil of that false constitutional monarchy.’

William Doyle – Role of women

‘What the ordinary women of Paris had done … was a force pushing both revolution and counter-revolution in violent directions.’

William Doyle – King’s rejection of revolution

‘It was obvious that Louis XVI had renounced (and indeed denounced) the Revolution … a substantial republican movement [emerged] in Paris.’

Peter McPhee – War and popular demands

‘The war revitalized the popular revolution … the demands of working people became more insistent and harder to deny.’

Jeremy Popkin – Women and political oversight

‘Despite the Convention’s ban … they frequently attended meetings … keeping the men under observation.’

Le Père Duchesne (1791) – Rejection of the king

‘You are no longer my king! … the nation … will not be so bloody stupid as to take back a coward like you.’

Olympe de Gouges (1791) – Women’s rights neglected

‘The women … resolved to set forth … the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman.’

Camille Desmoulins (1793) – Press freedom during Revolution

‘No longer do we have a paper that tells the truth … in a revolution it is necessary to suspend the liberty of the press.’

Maximilien Robespierre (1794) – Use of terror

‘We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic … lead the people by reason and the people’s enemies by terror.’

Donald Sutherland – Execution of Louis XVI as revolutionary turning point

‘[The king’s death] … the climax of the Revolution … meant that the French could live as republicans.’

Peter McPhee – Vendée rebellion and perspectives

‘For the republican troops, the [Vendéan] rebels were superstitious … For the rebels … Paris [was] bloody.’

Jeremy Popkin – Decline of the Terror

‘The impression that the Terror had turned into an irrational … bloodbath was accompanied by an improvement in the military situation.’

Donald Sutherland – Federalism and revolution

‘Though federalism … attracted royalists … the federalist manifestos proclaimed … loyalty to the Republic.’

Simon Schama – Institutionalisation of the Terror

‘The institutional machinery for the revolutionary dictatorship … replaced … street mobs [with] state punishment.’

Les Révolutions de Paris (1793) – Patriotism of sans-culottes

‘The true sans-culotte … is a patriot strong in mind and body … regenerated by the Revolution.’

La patrie en danger (11 July 1792) – Call to arms

‘Make haste, citizens, save liberty and avenge your glory.’

Napoleon Bonaparte (1795) – Aftermath of the Terror

‘The memory of the Terror is no more than a nightmare.’

Donald Sutherland – Thermidorian reset

‘The Thermidorians … hoped … the nation could make a fresh start.’

Peter McPhee – Robespierre vilified

‘As soon as [Robespierre] died … people rushed to vilify him.’

Peter McPhee – Return of property-based order

‘Property was the basis of the social order.’

Noah Shusterman – Decline of sans-culottes post-Robespierre

‘The deaths of Robespierre and his allies … meant less influence from the sans-culottes.’

Peter McPhee – Constitution of 1795 as revolution’s end

‘The constitution [of 1795] marks the end of the Revolution.’

Francois Furet - The August Decrees had the greatest

effect on the income of the Church.

‘In terms of revenue, the clergy were the principal losers on 4 August.’

Peter McPhee - The October Days cemented belief

that a new France had dawned

‘The key decrees sanctioned and the court party in disarray, the Revolution’s triumph seemed assured; to signify the magnitude of what they had achieved, people now began to refer to [the days before as the ancien régime.